I'm with you on the leeks! But I planted these by accident... have not grown them before, only cooked with them once or twice years ago...was just ignorant about them...so I get this amazing crop of leeks from the AP setup, lookup some recipes online and try them in a soup (FANTASTIC!!) then sautee'd with my green beans and squash (OMG!! These are so GOOD!!) and now am planning a whole bed just for leeks.. hoping I can rotate them through year round!! LOL :-)

Hi Nate,
What's the easiest way to talk/communicate for you? I'm a grad student interested in using the work you and this great group of folks has done into another realm. I could use your thoughts before I get too far along though. Could you send me a brief email at michael.s.uhl@gmail.com?

Excellent, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Thank you!

Going well here Nate, I'll have to take some Flower tower pictures for you.

Right now I'm just doing ornamental fish (mollies and such) while I learn the ropes. But I'm hoping to build a "real" system next year and raise tilapia and kitchen veggies. Just enough to feed the two of us from my rather small back yard. We're still studying, reading, and discussing potential layouts. Since our yard *is* so small, those towers are really calling to me as a better use of the space we have.

We were discussing using an IBC for our tank, and burying it to help insulate it (it snows a little here in winter, and gets over 100 in the summer) and we figured that would get us about 200 gallons of actual fish space. Then with another 200 gallons of growbeds, each a foot deep, it's turning into a much larger footprint than I'd expected - even with some overlap of the FT. And while we do have a small yard, I wasn't intending to cover the *whole* thing with a greenhouse!

I'd really only thought of the towers for strawberries, but you've shown me that it's not nearly that limited. So now I'm tentatively thinking perhaps 100 gallons of traditional GB and then have towers. That would really solve my space concerns.

Can you point me to a thread where I could study more about it? For example, I know that 1:1 is a good ratio for GB:FT volume, but how do I convert that to tower thinking?

LOL. I didn't mean to bombard you all at once. I'm just so excited by your beautiful results! :-) Forgive me, please!

Wow. I started looking at your pictures and my jaw dropped. Amazing!

Thought you might like to see the picture of a tower with flowers in it.

Hi Nate,
I'm currently looking at the Verti-Gro towers (quite popular here, I've noticed...) or a similar product made right here in Wisconsin. We'll be purchasing one or the other this week.
Pictures of Sweet Water's indoor systems are available on the SWO website.
I'm digging your vertical tube planters, & looking forward to exchanging ideas in the future.

Hi Nate: Thanks for reaching out. You know, I was just talking with my team yesterday about finding somebody who made towers --and then you appeared! (I have to give a nod here to Rob Torcellini, as it was his strawberry towers that got me thinking along these lines.) We would want to try to use a more sustainable medium, and I would love to hear your thoughts on that issue. In fact, I'd really like to speak with you about potential collaboration. susan@shwava.com

I am wondering if you could tell me your source of your material. I'm in the process of building a new greenhouse that's around 1000 sqft and will need a lot of it for the new towers....I'm also thinking it may work well in a standard growbed. Far lighter than stone, and possibly cheaper than expanded clay? I'm also working on getting some erosion control blankets that is the similar material, but less dense. (I think it's not dense enough)

As for the remote monitoring. This has been another big part of my design processes. Everything is custom built! I've been designing it for about 2 years in my spare time. The general system flow works like this. Individual sensors tie into an interface card that has a microprocessor in it. The interface cards currently support replays, on/off switch inputs, light sensors, digital temperature, and humidity (prototype just about done with the programming). Each interface card has a USB interface that can connect to a laptop. I chose to use a computer since they are cheap (for used low end used models) and can handle more of the logic features. The laptop is able to communicate over the Internet to a main web server where all the data is compiled for historical graphing. Also, the user can make changes to the settings of the controller computer. The controller computer can continue to operate if the internet connection is down, and will cache the data, but it is not possible to make changes to the programming without the web interface. Once nice feature with the laptop. If it dies, it can be replaced quickly and download the software and settings from the master web site.

And yes, we've chatted on the BYAP website. I'm Web4Deb.

Feel free to contact me at my work email address: rtorcellini@walchem.com

Hi Nate.

I've had very good luck with my verticals. I mainly grow strawberries in them and am using 3/8" crushed granite. There's a quarry nearby so I can get it really cheap. I have had just one plant get root bound and the water has overflowed a bit. I'm currently designing a modified tower to accommodate a slightly larger root mass and different growing medium.

This year I started experimenting with the same material that you have. It's the fiber matrix made (or resold) by GAF that is used in the building industry for roof ridge vents. It's only 3/4" thick, but it allows me to roll it into a cylinder and slide it into the round tower....so no waste cutting corners off the squares. I'm not using a lot of it since I don't know how it has been treated for fire suppression and don't want to hurt the fish. The MSDS sheets show it is polyester with less than 1% aluminum oxide and carbon black. No deaths yet!


continued...

Hi Nate
I used to do research at the UofW's research station in Grand Teton National Park when I was at U of Neb at Omaha. I went 2x a summer for almost 10 years. What a beautiful place. I was doing research on parasites in Microtus montanus in the park.
I have only gotten into the aquaponics lately. I was delayed by an eye problem but it is full steam ahead at the moment. I am awed by your towers. Just when you think you have all the answers and plans something new crops up. When you take a class the teachers believe they have all the answers. This website has shown me that is not true.
I want to understand more about the towers. Do you have blueprints, drawings, videos or anything. I need to understand how you get water to them and how does it recirculate to the fish. Maybe even pictures of the whole system. I learned a lot from the pictures but I don't get it all
Mahalo

I grow almost exclusively lettuce, Several Reds and some greens. Arugulas, Watercress, Spinach I will post some more pics later in the week. High nutrient value Greens. I am testing some Tomato towers. I get my seeds from Johnny's selected seeds. I will have to ship a CD with the Journals - they are 140 mb each. Do you grow your lettuce seedlings for 4 weeks and then how long until you harvest? Are you doing whole heads or pick and grow. I do both. The next 3 months are our best lettuce growing season until november. I do grow all summer with shade. It really depends on how well I can cool the greenhouse. I am thinking of a solar chimney-passive system to help cool it when the wind dies in the extreme summer. Working with Bioshelters has given me some ideas on how to cool and heat the greenhouse. Eventually with excess energy to help with the habitat space.

Hi Nate. Very interesting Vertical towers. I live only 30 mins from Vertigro. They ship most of their products. The towers run 4.50 each and hold up great. www.vertigro.com. Price list at I am getting my fish in a month. They will be coming from www.morningstarfishermen.org. I just finished scanning and digitizing all of the New Alchemy Journals. Let me know if you want a copy. There is a lot of research of the solar aquaponic tanks and pond culture. I would be interesting in conducting some side by side tests of your tower designs and the Vertigro. I really like your design. I will have my tanks in before the fish are ready. 5 tanks 280 gal each.
I have a good relationship with Tim at vertigro and just took the all day class there last week. He focuses on u-pick strawberry farms but there are a lot of small farm vegetable farmers using his systems for many years. I am using coconut Coir and Vermiculite. I am thinking of not having a bio-filter and let the pot media act as the biofilter. I have looked at your pics many times and have lots of questions. Let me know if you can help me out with some media and we can conduct some tests.

Hi Nate! Definitely keep me posted if you want to work something out for a small-scale test. I think you've really got something good going there :)

Hay Thanks for starting the discussion about the media and your vertical growing methods. I've been trying to send you a message but for some reason I can't get several functions on this site to work for me. Anyway, I'd love to play with some samples of the stuff. If it is as useful as all that, it could be a great handy filter media and grow media for aquaponics. I don't know if a media business was really what you had in mind though.
Thanks

Where do you find that media? If you can't tell, I'm kinda tempted to try it out for a few uses. Have you used if for any purposes other than your vertical growing towers? If so, what did you try and how were the results compared to other media.

Have you tried direct seeding into it or only with seedlings? What are your seed starting methods for the seedlings going into the towers.

I'm thinking up all sorts of questions here for you...
Hum, I wonder it this might all be better put into a discussion about your vertical hydroponics system.

Nate, Please tell us more about the media you are using in the vertical towers you are using? I'm interested in that design, looks really cool.